From the Dungeon of Pain to the Mahjong Table

A week that begins in a wound clinic and ends in a Mahjong classroom is, admittedly, not everyone’s idea of a balanced life — but for Jean, it’s just another chapter in her ongoing quest to stay upright, amused, and marginally patient with the world around her. From medical mysteries to sparrow‑themed tiles and one very inquisitive student, this dispatch wanders through pain, persistence, and the peculiar joys and frustrations of teaching seniors a game with more rules than Carter had little liver pills… AI

I knew I was in trouble when the instructions for my two‑hour appointment at the wound center included, “Take a pain medication before your appointment.” It also warned that if I was more than ten minutes late, the appointment would be rescheduled. Since I’d already waited weeks to get on their schedule, I was not going to be late come hell or high water. I left fifteen minutes early, thinking I’d use the extra time after I arrived to let my blood pressure come down from the stress of driving. What I didn’t count on was a construction zone that added extra time — not to mention extra stress — to my normal route to the hospital. I got there by the skin of my teeth.

I know what you’re thinking: no one has skin on their teeth, but what do you expect from a blogger who also uses the tired phrase “come hell or high water”? The latter is a quaint 19th‑century way of saying you have “an unyielding resolve to complete a task regardless of extreme obstacles.” My mom used to say it often. “Come hell or high water you’re going to finish your dinner or you'll sit there until bedtime. Liver, back in those days, was my biggest obstacle."

The “skin of my teeth” idiom comes from the Book of Job, verse 19:20. The King James Bible, published in 1611, translates it as: “My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” I wonder if Job ever imagined his words ending up in The Dictionary of Clichés more than three hundred years after that translation. That was one of my favorite reference books before Google came along.

Didn’t I get off track. Now you know what it’s like to live inside my head. Back to the wound center — which I’d rename the Dungeon of Pain if that didn’t sound too much like a video game. But all kidding aside, it went well. The people were super professional and friendly. The LP helping the doctor kidded at one point, “Remember, I’m the one who gives you Lidocaine gel, and he’s the one who inflicts the pain.”

They debrided the wound on my foot and found formations of urate crystals, which was no surprise since I’d already been told I probably have gout. (And no, I’m not a heavy drinker. In my case it’s a side effect of having stage 3 kidney failure.)

But it was a surprise that they also found evidence of venous ulcers, which they suspect are caused by a leaking varicose vein. Now I’m waiting for a referral call to set up an appointment with a vein specialist. God — another specialist to add to my contact list. But the wound center doctor said we can’t get the wound healed until we get at the underlying causes. Why can’t we go back to the horse‑and‑buggy days when one doctor treated whatever ailed you? Never mind the life expectancy back then was 40 to 45. They also had over‑the‑counter cocaine and snake‑oil salesmen to help you cope.

I have to go back to the center every week for God only knows how long. A few days after that appointment I clicked on my patient portal to read the clinical notes. At the end of a bunch of medical terms strung together like popcorn on a Christmas tree, it said: “Estimated time for wound healing: 4 to 6 months.” Four to six months! And for the foreseeable future I need to stop walking for exercise. There goes my progress with losing weight. If it’s not one damn thing, it’s two damn things — another one of my mom’s favorite sayings.

Change of topic: I taught another Mahjong class of newbies today. Five senior citizens, and four of them will probably make it to the end, but one lady is trying my patience. I’ve been teaching classes once a year at my continuum care community for four years, and there’s always one person who gets hung up on the stupidest things.

When I was doing the history segment of the class, I showed them my one‑bams collection of tiles. They all have birds carved or painted on the fronts, and I explained you can date antique sets by the style of those birds. “I don’t get it. Why are they all birds?” Ms. Dense asked. “Tradition,” I replied. “The word Mahjong literally means ‘sparrow,’ and for centuries that’s how one‑bams tiles have been made.” “But why?” she asked again. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand,” I said. “It’s just an interesting sidebar to appreciating the history and artistry of the game.” She took up so much time with her “why this” and “why that” questions. “Why can’t I use a joker in a pair?” “Because it’s one of the fourteen rules for using jokers. Mahjong has a lot of rules, and part of the fun and challenge is remembering them all.” “But why do they have so many rules?”

I didn’t say it, but I wanted to tell her we’d need a time machine to take us back a century or two to get all the answers to her questions. You'd think that would be obvious with a game as old as Mahjong.

There you have it —another exciting week in my world. How did your week go? Bonus points if it involved fewer specialists and fewer people asking "why?" every few minutes. ©

Note: In the early 20^th century a massive advertising campaign inspired the well-known idiom, "He/She has more [things] than Carter has Little Liver Pills." They stopped making Carter's liver pills in 1959 so I can't be the only person old enough to remember this saying.

The first photo below is a collection of very old one bam Mahjong tiles made of ivory over bamboo. My collection (second photo) is much smaller and are mostly Bakelite tiles from the 1930s. 

         

Waking up Early and Not-so-Chronic Pain

 

I got up at 5:30 which is three hours before my normal time to 'rise and shine' as my mom used to order me to do each morning when I was kid. "Rise and shine!" she'd yell in the hall between my brother's and my bedrooms, "It's daylight in the swamp!" The sky was starting to show some pinks and lavenders through the bare trees across the green space in from of my apartment, something I hadn't seen in a very long time. Back when I was plowing snow I used to see the sun rise often, to the point that I had better words to describe the pastel mistiness that washes the sky like a watercolor painting in the crisp dawn air. How can anyone not love watching the day come to life?

I looked for the deer they say are often around that time of the day. I looked for the raccoon that leaves tracks in the snow on my deck. I looked for the white tailed skunk I've seen several times but have learned not to talk about it because other people living here freaked out on my report and want to see it and the racoon exterminated. A heavily wooded area was destroyed to build this independent living facility and in my mind we humans need to adjust to live in peace with the displaced wildlife that survived the disruption. White tailed skunks are rare in this part of the country. I researched her on our DNR site and found someone had photographed another white tailed skunk sixty miles away at our state capital. They were as excited as I was to see something they'd never seen before. Not only are the tails white and bushy but the stripes down the backs are wider than on our normal skunks. The first time I saw my skunk all that pure white fur was backlit by parking lot lights and she was stunning.

It was a dream that woke me up. In the dream I was telling myself, "it's just a dream, you need to wake up!" WAKE UP!" I was in that state of Sleep Paralysis which happens sometimes when you are conscious during waking up or falling asleep but you can't move any part of your body. It doesn't happen to me often but when it does it rattles me enough that I can't go back to sleep. 

The only details in the dream that I remember are that my husband took the dog out for a walk and they didn't come back. I waited and waited and worried until I got out of bed in the dream and found he'd left me a hug jar of honey on the kitchen table. Dreaming of honey, according to the dream dictionary, can mean a lot of positive things including that the dreamer has a strong support system which I'm going with in this case because that evening I had had long talks with both of my nieces who were concerned about the outcome of my appointment with my orthopedic doctor. One of my nieces and I had even talked about it being time to start eating a daily teaspoon of locally sourced honey to build up an immunity for our summer and fall allergies.

I don't think I mentioned it before but all winter I've been experiencing a lot of pain in my right arm from my wrist to my elbow. And since it's in same arm that I broke my elbow in 1999, I had myself all worried and worked up thinking it was finally time to do something about the botched surgery, as my current bone doctor calls it. I saw him about this same thing (when the level of pain was much less) last summer and back in 2018 when I wrote: "One of the screws that once held the top of the ulna bone to the bottom was floating around free-willy in my flesh. Another screw that looked to be around 1 ½ or 2 inches long had backed half way out and was no longer anchoring the ulna bone to the radius bone like it was supposed to do, and a stress fracture was showing a few inches below the screw." Xrays taken this week showed both screws are free-willy now, but the doctor can feel their heads through my skin and he doesn't think they are causing my pain. Back in 2018 when this was first discovered he didn't want to do anything to try to correct "the mess" because, he said, would be “a major ordeal involving a very long surgery, weeks in a cast and  months of physical therapy.” I was advised back then to never again lift anything above my waist or ever pick up anything over five pounds with that arm. When I forget, it lets me know.

This week the doctor gave me a shot in my wrist as part of a diagnostic procedure to track down why I can't do things like put my right hearing aid or earring in without pain and dozens of other movements that jabs me with pain through out the day and night. And soon I start a 13 day round of 20 mg prednisone as part of his diagnostic process. The most I've ever had of prednisone are rounds of 4mg so I'm a little concerned about side effects but I trust my doctor. If the wrist shot works (which it did like magic but for only 24 to 36 hours) it means the majority of the pain is coming from arthritis in that area but if the pain in my forearm goes away with the prednisone then the source is coming from crushed and arthritic vertebrae in my neck. It's possible that both are in play. Once he figures that out he'll be able to form a treatment plan that could involve a nerve block on my neck and/or gel shots in my wrist---and "other options" we didn't get into. I'm relieved that elbow surgery is off the table. The bones are fussed together though not lined up right, but they are in no danger of rendering my elbow non functioning which I invented and feared in my worse case scenario. If I live long enough the screws could start cutting through my skin and they'll be easier to remove then. Shrapnel tends work its way outward if no nerves or organs get in the way. On a side note: did you hear that Russia is now dropping shrapnel by drones on Ukrainians to maim, not kill them, in an attempt to overwhelm their healthcare system and give them painful fragments they'll have to live with because they aren't all easy to remove?

Back on topic: All and all things are looking up. I've got a busy March in front of me including some promising looking art classes taught by a college professor and my sense of feeling old and defeated has lessened just knowing a have a path towards feeling better. I'm still struggling to get in enough exercise to make a real difference but nicer weather is on the way so that will help get me outside walking again. By then my fellow residents will quit walking around with ashes on their faces and filling up the calendar with 'churchy' stuff. If that sounds irreverent or disrespectful, I'm sorry. I'm not a fan of the Easter season and listening to how beautiful the Stations of the Crosses ceremonies are, which are repeated here four weeks in a row. I just can't relate to the somberness of the occasion and the bitten-by-the-spirt looks in the eyes of those who take part creeps me out. Not to mention my mom died on Easter which led to a trauma filled couple of years making peace with her very preventable death. 

Nope. I'll buy yellow Peeps but that's the extent of my Easter celebration and this year even that didn't turn out well when one of my table mates at lunch told me my four pack of tradition yellow marshmallow rabbits was pure sugar and not good for fatty-two-by-fours like me. Not her words but implied. More on that conversation in my next post. ©

 Until Next Wednesday...

 

I spent a lot of time trying to track down the author of this poem with not luck and I hate that he or she isn't being created properly. If anyone recognizes it, please leave a comment!

Ice Cream, Screens and Clams at High Tide

After spending way too many days in a fog of pain I’m getting my range of motion back in my neck. It’s not totally there yet but at least I don’t want to crawl under a rock and play kissy-face with a toad to get him to let me share his space. All I’ve wanted to do is hide in a cool, dark place and I’ve discovered that an ice pack wrapped in a kitchen towel and held in place by a chip-clip makes a nice fashion statement. Ice Collars by Jean. My third appointment with the chiropractor was yesterday and I don't need a forth unless I'm not back to normal in a week. The Recuperation Train, she says, is running on schedule. My words, not hers. She talks like an adult.

One of those days when I wanted to cohabitate with a toad I went to an ice cream social at the senior hall instead. It’s a free event and they tend to result in more people wanting to go than the place can hold. So when you get your RSVP approved it’s not fair to those who didn’t, not to show up. I lucked out and sat near two ladies from my Gathering Girls group and our table was dismissed first to get in line to build our own sundaes. The entertainer, a guitarist and singer, was good but I couldn’t turn my head enough to see him and I wasn’t in the mood to hear songs my mom used to play on a Victrola when I was a kid. Listening to those old tunes while in pain made me feel ancient and I wondered, how old does this guy think we are? In between songs, I made my great escape and I only felt half guilty for leaving early. 

On the way home I had an errand to run. I needed to pick up three window screens and return one I had picked up a few days before because the newly replaced screen fabric was baggy. The lady at the counter must have had a cob up her butt because when I (nicely) showed her the problem she said, “Well, that’s what happens when you order fiberglass instead of aluminum.” I was shocked and in no mood to get balled out like that. My voice turned as snippy as hers when I replied: “I’ve had five or six screens redone here over the past few weeks and this one is the only one that looks like it was done by a ten year old! And,” I added, “When I started this process no one told me there WAS an aluminum option.” She took the screen back to the work area and came back with a message that they’d redo it. “Wait in your car and I’ll bring it out when it done.” By the time she brought it out and showed it to me her snippiness was gone, probably because the difference in the screen was so obvious. I went home, took an Aleve, put on my “ice collar” and pouted about mean Mrs. Cob-Up-Her-Butt until I forgave her. Maybe that cob was giving her as much pain as my stiff neck.

Remember Larry the Cable guy? This week I had a service call from my own Larry the Cable Guy. Actually, I got two cable guys for the price of one and one actually looked like Daniel Whitney who played Larry the Cable Guy. He mostly did the work required outside and down the basement while grandson-material-Jason fixed all my issues on the main level and I had many. One of my TV’s picture was breaking up at a certain times of the day (a downstairs issue) one of my remotes wouldn’t hold its programing (an improper setting in the TV) and he set me up with a new remote for the bedroom that glows in the dark. (That's going to save me a ton of stress because pushing the wrong buttons in the dark takes me to places I can't return without an agent on the phone to walk me through it.) I also got a new signal receiver outside since mine was twelve years old and Jason checked the speed of my computer. I was as happy as a clam at high tide when they left but the next morning the problem I called about---the picture breaking up---was back again only worse! Back to square one.

Trivia note: The phrase ‘happy as a clam at high tide’ has been around since at least 1833 when it first appeared in print in a memoir and by 1848 it was included in John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms. The theory is it evolved because at high tide clams open up and they look happy in that state. Over the years, we’ve dropped the 'high tide' part and now most people just say, "I'm as happy as a clam." Old metaphors endure because we're too lazy to come up with new ones, but that's also pretty cool when you think about it. I wish I could write a metaphor that a google search two hundred years from now would trace back to me.

I was trying to find a quote or meme about pain to end this blog and it’s clear that society admires people who power through it with smiles and quiet humility. My neck issues will be gone in time if I don’t do anything to inflame it again---I have to curtail my upper body strength training at the YMCA for two weeks---but after the week I’ve had I’ve learned I’m still a little girl at heart; I’ve wanted my mommy, ice cream and a good cry. At least I got the ice cream. ©

A Royal Pain in the Neck

 

After dinner when the heat of the day gets pushed aside by deep shadows in my back yard I’ve been sitting out on my deck reading until the fireflies announce that the light is fading fast. The new book club selection is over 650 pages of foreign words, strange customs and medical terms describing things I don’t want or need to know about. The story centers on a set of twins growing up in a small mission hospital in tumultuous Ethiopia during the ‘50s and ‘60s. If you’re getting the idea that I’m not enjoying the book, you’d be right. But I’m stubborn so I keep reading my required two chapters a night so I’ll get the darn thing finished in time. If there was a movie version of Cutting for Stone I’d cheat and rent it but it’s still in production according to IMDb. I’m only on page 361 but I understand part of the book I haven't read yet takes place in the slums of New York City where one twin becomes a surgeon while the other twin stays behind as surgeon at the mission, but I don’t imagine the change of scenery will make me warm up to the book. The story will still revolve around abject poverty, bloody surgeries and boys with lusty thoughts. After reading pages and pages and PAGES of detailed descriptions of surgeries, I could probably do vasectomies and turn babies around in breach. Crawl up on my kitchen table. I’ll take care of that. Two years on the New York Times Best Sellers List and all I can do is wonder if I’m the only reader who doesn’t understand half of what I’m reading and doesn’t care about the other half.

This evening as I read out on the deck the dog was being a royal pain. Usually he’ll sit quietly watching for rabbits who try unsuccessfully to violate the fence around the neighbor’s vegetable garden and listening intently for the jingle-jangle of dog tags announcing that pitbull’s who live directly behind us have come outside to play. This time of the year we can’t see them but Levi knows when they are happily running around ignoring his whining and barking pleas for me to let him join in their games. Please mom, let me go over there! “No, Levi those big boys could eat you for a snack and still be hunger.” Tonight was different. He wasn’t happy on the deck. Levi wanted to go inside the house, then when he’d get there he’d want to come back outside. Back and forth he went until I finally got tired of being his personal Jack-in-the-box, popping in and out of my chair like a wind-up toy and I went inside with him. Levi wasn’t finished annoying me. He made me follow him into the kitchen where I’d forgotten to feed him. He’s the perfect dog for an old person because there isn’t anything he’ll let slide. Food, water, potty breaks, dental sticks and bed time---he’s very vocal about all these things until he gets through to me that he’s got a schedule fixed in his head and I'm messing with that.

I had a good excuse for forgetting the kibble. I spent the weekend in a lot of pain---not the urinary tract infection kind, that’s gone---and I wasn't even feeding myself. This time it was shoulder and neck pain. I’m not fond of chiropractors, in fact they scare me, having known several people who ended up having a stroke on their tables. But I could feel something was out of place so I called Monday morning and by the time my afternoon appointment was over I was feeling 60% better. I left with instructions to come back if I wasn’t 100% by Wednesday. She thinks I pinched a nerve while sleeping on my side and we had the don’t-crack-my-neck conversation. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m going to have to do it.” She contends that anyone who has a stroke on a chiropractor’s table would have had one within a few hours anyway and having it then, where it’s recognized for what it is, could possibility save a person’s life. She used the example being home alone so you wouldn’t/couldn’t get to the hospital within the four hour window to get the drug to reverse a stroke. I’d rather not get my neck cracked, thank you very much, but I didn’t see a shotgun sitting in the corner to put me out of my misery. She did the dirty deed---without my permission---when I wasn’t expecting it, then she promised that was the worst thing she’d do to me. As I write this on Tuesday night, I can tell I’ll be calling back tomorrow for another treatment. Pain is still a melody playing softly underneath my every move. If I don’t post a blog on Saturday you’ll know the chiropractor killed me. ©